1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a communication system, and in particular, to a power control method and system for minimizing interference between neighbor cells in a communication system with a multi-cell configuration.
2. Description of the Related Art
Intensive research on the next generation communication system is being conducted to provide users with high-speed services having various Quality of Service (QoS) classes. The communication system may experience interference between multiple cells, especially between neighbor cells, because the multiple cells constituting the communication system share the limited resources, for example, frequency resources, code resources, time slot resources, etc. Due to the interference between neighbor cells, Mobile Stations (MSs) located in a particular cell, especially the MSs located in the boundary area of the cell, may suffer from a considerable decrease in reception performance of the signals received from a Base Station (BS) in charge of the cell (“serving BS”).
Also, the serving BS in charge of a particular cell may suffer from a considerable decrease in reception performance of the signals received from MSs located in the cell due to the interference between neighbor cells. That is, in the communication system with a multi-cell configuration, a BS in charge of its own cell and MSs located in the cell may receive interference from neighbor cells, for example, from BSs in charge of the neighbor cells (“neighbor BSs”), and from MSs located in the neighbor cells.
In the communication system with a multi-cell configuration, due to the occurrence of interference between neighbor cells, the communication system may suffer from a decrease in signal transmission/reception performance, and also may not guarantee the required QoS for users. Therefore, there is a need for a power control scheme for minimizing interference between neighbor cells in the communication system with a multi-cell configuration. There is also a need for a power control scheme for increasing performance and efficiency of the communication system with a multi-cell configuration.